Could you please stop that cat scratching?

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Have you ever watched a child cast one toy aside and reach for something else? A friend of mine once told me he had watched his grandchildren open gifts and cast each one aside looking for the next one while spending no time with the one they just opened.

He shared with me that at that point he knew his grandchildren had come to expect too much, wanting more and more — rather than being satisfied with one gift, they wanted to rip through dozens and then simply cast them aside.

I looked at my watch as mother drove by the old Colonial Grocery Store saying, “Hurry, Mom, we are going to be late.” Of course, we were not going to be late. The piano store was just next door. I picked up my books and rushed inside. I was always amazed at a store filled with pianos — I really wanted to get there early so I could go through and try out several of them while I waited my turn with piano teacher Jean Stiles.

I do not know what made me want to go from instrument to instrument playing. Perhaps it was the same desire that made those children my friend had described ripping through more and more presents. Although the pianos were not mine and would not be.

I was intrigued by the talents of gospel pianist Hovie Lister, Eva Mae LeFevre and classical pianist Victor Borge. Several of my cousins had the knack to play piano along with their singing, so I had hoped the gene passed to me as well.

Of course, as a child of eight, my repertoire was a bit slim. In spite of the best efforts of my teacher, I was not the most proficient student who worked through “The Minuet” and “The Entertainer.”

No matter my deficiencies, I had a true desire and my mother supported that to no end. She worked overtime to afford a walnut Currier Spinet piano and pay for my lessons.

One day while sitting in my elementary school room, the entire course of my life changed. Dr. Donald Grisier, DeKalb County orchestra teacher, came into the room and played Chubby Wise and Ervin Rouse’s “Orange Blossom Special” on the violin. I have not been worth shooting since.

I had heard my great Uncle Tom Franks play the violin like his father had done before him at family gatherings, but now there was someone willing to sit and teach me.

After convincing my parents that I wanted to learn violin, I signed up. My mother once again went out of her way to see that I got the opportunity by renting an instrument. I also continued my piano study, but eventually it did fade away in the shadow of the fiddle. I realized I was not going to be the next Hovie Lister or Victor Borge. The fiddle would stick and lead me to some amazing places. Although, early in the process there was enough sounds like a cat scratching coming out of it to run any sane person out of the house.

While I would never consider myself a pianist, the knowledge I gained while learning about the instrument has served me extremely well in every musical endeavor. The experience prepared me for a lifetime of lessons in almost every pursuit I’ve chosen to follow.

So, while at times children may be spoiled by piles and piles of material gifts that simply get laid aside, if a child shows interest in music, even if the child has absolutely no talent for it, and may someday lay the expensive instrument aside for other pursuits, remember as the child’s practicing causes the paint to peel in the family room, love of music is a gift that will last a lifetime and can span the generations.

 

A laugh saves us every time

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When I find myself frustrated with the things that come my way, there are always two places I go. First, I go to the word of God; secondly, I go to God’s gift to the world — comedy. God must have a sense of humor; just look at all the great things he gives us to laugh at.

When I was little, I always looked forward to “The Red Skelton Show.” When the network finally took it off, I remember being very upset. I remember literally rolling in the floor and laughing, ‘til it hurt, at the routines and characters of this master entertainer.

As a musician, the craftsmanship of musical comedy by Victor Borge still fascinates me.

These skilled conveyors of mirth made me and millions of others laugh without bad language, lewd comments or off-color humor.

So many people have made me feel better in my life with just a few minutes of their artistry.

The situation comedies that I have seen a thousand times still can take me away and lighten my heart, shows like “The Beverly Hillbillies.” The network did not envision the impact those characters would have on America and the world. I am blessed to know Donna Douglas “Elly Mae Clampett.” She and Buddy Ebsen, Max Baer, Jr., and Irene Ryan have brought me endless hours of feeling good.

Irene Ryan’s “Granny” became so much a part of my childhood that her real life passing affected me as if she was a member of my family. I still have the newspaper clipping in my Bible after all these years.

She had worked a lifetime enjoying many successes, but it was not until God opened the door for her to play “Granny” that she lifted millions around the world out of their problems for a few minutes a day. I just have to think about some of the outlandish things that she, the Hillbillies and their support cast did to bring me out of the doldrums.

Saturday nights at seven at our house were the “Hee Haw” hour. It would be impossible to list all the wonderful cast members of that show.

Grandpa Jones, Minnie Pearl, Junior Samples, Archie Campbell, Gordy Tapp, Roni Stoneman and the entire cast could take the corniest routines and bring them life. They made Saturdays at seven something to look forward to.

I would be remiss not to mention the comedy talent of all the cast of “The Andy Griffith Show.” Don Knotts’ unique ability to take the simplest sentence or reaction and make it funny is an amazement. If there were comedic actors like that today, new television comedies might be worth watching.

I enjoyed “Frazier” too; those actors truly are superb with the material the writers give them, but I still would rather see Andy, Opie and all the gang.

I was once told that as an entertainer it is our job to take folks away from their problems, whether with a three-minute song, an hour-long television show or a live appearance.

I hope that my walk down memory lane with some of my favorite comedy people may have helped you think of something that makes you laugh, and thus makes you feel a whole lot better. I know I do.

Your word is your bond

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I have been told there was a time when a person was judged upon the words which emanated from his mouth.
A person’s character could be seen in his deeds and by what he would say and sometimes what he would not say.
I have met many people in my life. Some, I would not trust them as far as I could throw them, while others — if they say it, it will be done.
When two people struck a bargain and shook hands there was nothing else to do.
Today, however, we are in a world filled will reams of contracts, agreements and endless disclaimers and visits to a lawyer.
My grandpa Bill was a man of his word. If he said he would help with something, no matter what hardship it placed upon him, he would do it.
In my association with music legend Bill Monroe, I learned quickly that his honor was paramount in his image.
There was never a bargain struck or a promise made between he and I that he did not make come to pass.
I remember visiting with him before his final illness. He walked up to me and with the strength of a 20-year-old he squeezed my hand. He looked at me dead in the eye and said, “I tell you man, there are not that many good men left any more. Men like us need to stick together and help each other out.”
More than his praise of my musical ability or all the things he had done for me in my life, those few words conveyed to me that he thought of me as a man of my word.
Working in the world of television and film, I quickly learned the lesson that many Hollywood movers and shakers tend to be the opposite. Most of these trendsetters simply tell you what you want to hear rather than the truth. This trend relates more to the stars and executives of the last two to three decades.
There are and were what I call “class acts” such as the late stars Gene Autry, John Wayne and Roy Rogers whose word was their bond. I wish there were more people like them today.
I cannot tell you how many times someone has promised me they would use me in a movie project, and then when the project came along that promise was forgotten.
I am afraid I have found the same to be true in the “real” world as well.
Sometimes it just makes you want to lose faith in the entire human race when a person tells you he will do one thing and he does another.
In my own life, I have never broke a promise or not followed through with an agreement. Being a man of your word also carries through to fulfilling the everyday tasks that we all do. Returning phone calls, fulfilling requests, replying to mail are just a few of the little things that some folks might miss.I know that I have probably misstepped by not doing a few things that I have said I would do in my life. For those touched by such an action, I ask for forgiveness.
But I also know when I have told someone I would do something, usually such an assurance has popped up in my memory over and over again until I finish the task. There have been times I have carried one of those little things around in my head for a couple of years until I could do something about it.
But no matter what, I always did it.
Despite trends to the contrary and those who we discover are not honorable by their deeds and words, I believe it is the responsibility of every individual to make every effort to rise above such people to make our community a place of honor. It is what we owe our forefathers who built this land, and what we owe those who fight and die for our continued freedom.

A privy and some plums

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The gentle falling of snowflakes takes me back to the days when cold weather would bring a tough decision at the old family homestead.

Being cold in the winter was a common experience, since the only heat came from a fire in the main room. Grandma would always be the one up early to get the fire going before anyone else was out from under their warm down covers.
Sometimes in the middle of the night, the call of nature would come upon me. Unlike our house in town, where the bathroom was only about 15-feet down the hall, I was faced with a decision to make a 20-yard dash to the outhouse or simply utilize the chamber pot.
Most would use the chamber pot. But for some reason as a kid, even when the temperature dipped into the teens, I would push myself to put on my old black leather work boots and my brown quilted coat with the hood and make the trek up to the old white pine outhouse.
It wasn’t a very fancy building, much like those depicted in so many arts and crafts designs. The lumber from which it was made was hewn by hand and weathered by years of use. A simple wood latch kept critters from wandering in there with you. It wasn’t always successful, however.
I remember one time my little cousin, Wilbur, was making use of the facilities. Wilbur wasn’t very tall for his age. With his small frame I wonder how he managed not to fall in, I had trouble myself when I was young. After a few minutes in there, he ran out pulling up his britches, claiming there was a creature attacking him from underneath like the monster from the black lagoon. After investigation, we discovered that it was a two-legged dominicker from the hen house which apparently had decided to peck more than the ground.
In the summer, without air-conditioning, evenings were spent sitting on the front porch to catch a breeze to ease the heat which built in the house throughout the day. A trip to the old privy would find many types of crawly and flying critters, although they seldom bothered me except for an occasional sting. I seem to remember that happening one time. I then spent the rest of the day with a Bruton Snuff poultice attached to whatever part of my body the critter stung.
While I can reminisce fondly about trips to that quaint little building, as someone who was raised in the city, I must say that with the exception of the great solitude of the outhouse amidst God’s great outdoors, I did much prefer modern porcelain versions.
However, when the plums come in, I often wish I could take a trip back to the outhouse. About 20-feet beyond it was a red plum tree that often required my attention. I just loved making a trip out there to eat my fill.
Of course, my mother and grandma would warn me to stay out of the plums. “If you eat too many, you will get sick,” they would say, and they were right.
If I spent an hour up that plum tree, I would spend most of the next day about 20 feet away.
Thankfully, I never got a visit from the dominicker from beneath.
From Randall Franks’s “A Mountain Pearl: Appalachian Reminiscing and Recipes.”

Fear not

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Fear is something that hides deep within each of us as we walk through life.

I remember as a child, as many of my fellow youth gleefully looked to getting their first bicycle, within me was a sense of dread. I was comfortable with the tricycle and the insecurity of falling and losing my balance as I moved to the bike was such a hurdle to overcome. My father graciously added training wheels to the bicycle which I use for a brief time until the fear and dread faded and then one day, I asked him to take them off. I through my leg across and soared down the driveway looking back over my shoulder at my smiling father.

The fear was gone. Of course, that did not stop the future mishaps, being thrown over the handlebars head first and sliding down the pavement several yards. Even that did not dissuade my return to the seat of my green speedster.

As we age fear remains but takes different aims. As a teen the fear was of relationships. Not of girls, I liked them plenty but I just did not know how to ask one out for fear of rejection. And boy, did I get rejected. My heart became a revolving door of turndowns. With each and every one that fear of hurt just grew and grew into a monster. One day though, the answer was yes, and off to the races I went.

The fear was gone, until the day that she decided she no longer liked me and wanted to move on.

Then the fear of rejection took on a different form, it wasn’t immediate, it waited a few weeks into the relationship, so I could be vested and feel the rejection with greater amplitude. What a monster that was that I saw grow year by year. Eventually though, I cast even that monster aside with a battle worthy of knighthood.

But fear was not gone, it came forward in the search for success, after failure here and there mounted, the concerns were growing within, “Will I ever find a place in life that I will work and serve and find contentment?”

That fear has been present throughout my life and no matter what successes others may see within my walk in life, I am always that youth out of school trying to find my place in the world that will make me, and others happy. Will I overcome it before I reach check out? I doubt it. But I will keep picking up my sword daily and beating it back as I serve my way through to the Pearly Gates. God has a purpose and reason for what is behind and ahead in my work for Him.

Fear manages to creep into the corners of our life and sit there waiting to pounce. I remember at points in my life, I sat fearful and immobilized by things that were ridiculous, but at the time, they consumed me and my thoughts. I let other influences control my being by their actions, their deeds, their words. Then I realized that I am not their plaything. I am in control of my life and as long as I am able to conduct what I do in an honorable, consistent, lawful, and faithful fashion, I should not be afraid.

I am thankful to my closest friends and relatives who have helped me through the years as I have struggled with various areas where fear has gripped my life, they have been God’s angels walking through my life steering me in the right direction.

Now, though I have seemed to be negative on fear in the words thus far, I am thankful for the spirit of fear that God sends to warn us away from impending disaster, from making the wrong decision, or doing something that might alternatively change the course of our life in a negative way. In those senses, fear is welcomed and in another way comforting.

“Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.” (Isaiah 41:10)

 

 

Is today the first day of the rest of your life?

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Folks often see the change of a new year as an opportunity for renewal.

“Let’s get rid of the old habits that plaque our existence,” is often what drives this sense of new found opportunity.

We will shed those unwanted pounds, stop smoking, be kinder to those who irritate us, make up with friends or relatives with whom we are estranged, be a better employee, make church every Sunday.

All these seem like valued opportunities and goals and I wholeheartedly support any efforts your desire to make to fill your life with joy, happiness and a daily dose of goal-oriented focus!

Let’s see I will start off with setting my alarm at 6 a.m. and off to the exercise machines I will go.

One. Two, Three, Four, Five…. Well that’s enough of that, boy I feel better, now for a few minutes riding the bike while watching the news and 30 minutes later I hop off the bike, feeling a great sense of accomplish all the while angry over something I heard on the news. Well next time no news watching.

OK, next day… set the alarm… it goes off… I reach to hit snooze as I realize my well exercised arm now hurts… goes off again… I move my legs which now hurt also. Oh, I’ve got to exercise but my legs and arms are revolting.

I pull myself out of bed and make my way to the equipment sit down and give it my best … one, two, two… two… I guess my best is not so good. Well to the bike, OK, remember no news… what am I going to do while peddling? Ow, that hurts… Well maybe I skip the bike today.

Third day… snores fill the room as I forgot to set the alarm. I awake refreshed but later than normal, look at the clock and realize I am late for an appointment. Rush to get ready and out the door not even noticing the pain from the day before in my haste.

Isn’t the splendor of living better such an uplift? Well it really is once you get past the realization that anything you decide to do out of the norm, is generally not easy. It takes dedication, and a willingness to stretch yourself into where you desire to grow towards.

I hope that you find great success in every goal you set aside this month for 2020. I know that is my aim, if I can just get the legs to stop acting like spaghetti when I try to walk after all this amazing joy, I am filling them with.

 

The differences within 100 years

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The other day I realized I am now living 100 years beyond my grandparents’ key time in their lives.

In 1920, my grandparents Bill and Kitty Bruce had been married for four years.

My grandfather had spent his youth in the west, returned to Tennessee and found himself a bride half his age, bought land with the money he earned out west and started farming raising corn, tomatoes, running cattle and hogs.

They watched Bill brothers Tom and James, cousins and friends go off to WWI among the 130,915 men and women from Tennessee who did. Tom died, while James returned a shell of his former self and died within a couple of years.

They survived the Spanish flu epidemic that killed other family and friends as it savaged community after community infecting 500 million in 1918 around the world.

In this year my grandmother would become pregnant beckoning my first aunt Minnie Lee, named for her aunt, who would pass as a toddler in 1923.

My grandmother for the first time in her life was allowed to walk in a polling place and cast a ballot as women gained the vote. Grandpa would vote for Democrat James Cox while my grandmother always proudly said she voting just the opposite just to cancel out Grandpa’s vote meaning she voted for Republican Warren G. Harding. Not sure if she ever told grandpa though, she told me long after he was gone.

They rode horses, buckboards, buggies or walked where they went. There were no automobiles. They chopped down trees to build what they needed and cut wood to cook on and to heat from the cold. Harvest time meant canning vegetables to eat throughout the year. Meat was smoked in the smoke house, salted and cured to sustain meats to eat when hunting was slim.

As I look around at what I experience each day. I make much of my living in mediums that were not even existent – radio and television. Buying musical recordings was still in its infancy in those days with 78s and Victrolas being the source. Not one of those were within miles of them and it would be many years before a battery-operated radio would make its way to the valley.

If I get hungry, I go out, get in my SUV, drive to a restaurant, or to the store and buy something a farmer somewhere put into the food supply chain to fill the need. If I cook it at home, much of the time I pop it into a microwave oven and in a few minutes, I am seated in front of my favorite TV show eating away. That experience would have taken my grandmother hours in addition to the months it took my father to cultivate and/or hours to hunt or raise, slaughter and preserve.

I look up in the sky and I see jet planes, they looked up and saw only the birds for a few more years. Thanks to the advantage of science, and communication, we can anticipate the weather while they reacted daily to what occurred.

I communicate on a phone I carry in my pocket, they had to holler up the holler or send someone walkin’ to spread any news for quite a few more years to come. I can look at a computer and catch up on the news, they had to wait for a newspaper to come through the area at the general store.

It is amazing what 100 years has brought us. Is it better? It is more convenient. I do not know if it’s more healthy for us. It is definitely different and I imagine if my 1920s grandparents were dropped into what I see daily, I imagine they would feel we have a strange and foreign life.

Both lived to see the transition to automobiles, the advent of television and grandmother lived well beyond man reaching the moon and folks thinking of flying as a real form of transportation.

Such amazing things they saw… I don’t know if what we have in store ahead of us will compare but I certainly hope it will be and I realize how amazing it really is!

Is 2020 the year I dreamed upon?

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OK its 2020, that is suppose to be significant in our lives right.

Well, we are here, breathing and have every opportunity that life within the United State of America affords.

There are so many significant dates that have passed in my life. Let’s see, when I was in school, we read a book called 1984… I don’t recall that year being anything like what was described by George Orwell in his classic, but he did write it 70 years ago. Perhaps he should have named it 2024, as with the advent of the internet, it seems more of what was described by Orwell is at hand today.

When Stanley Kubrick created the 2001 Space Odyssey in 1968, the country was in a race to the moon, so the setting for a battle between man and machine in space was a plausible notion, but we didn’t get there by 2001, and it looks like it may be another 50 or 100 years before we come close.

One of my favorite childhood cartoons was “The Jetsons,” where there was a robotic maid, all types of amazing gadgets, and the family flew around in what looked like a flying car with a bubble on top. According to the promotional material the cartoon showed our future in 2062, and here we are in 2020.

Will we make it? We certainly have more interesting and amazing gadgets. We have vacuum cleaners and mowers which will map our space and perform the task on their own something I would have loved as a kid. I pushed endlessly with a push mower and vacuum.

Are we as ordinary human beings, and young enough, going to experience great leaps in the coming 50 years that will reflect the imagination of the past creators of books, movies and television shows? I don’t know, but it certainly is amazing to think about. Many of us, now have our lies and pastimes rotate around items that did not even exist to consumers in the year 2,000. So, I guess conceivably, some of us will see some amazing steps in front of us.

I often wonder though is our race toward greater technological advancement will simply move us farther away from one another. As I look around at restaurants and see people staring at social media, or texts on their phone while their loved ones at the table do similarly. What happens as we perfect our abilities to communicate with other through something in our hand but can’t look them in the eye and do the same.

Is 2020 going to be what I hoped and dreamed of as a child or younger adult, probably not. But then again, no one put me in charge of what our lives should be. All each of us can do, each day the Lord allows us to awaken, place our feet on the floor, and walk in a forward motion, is do the very best with each step we take, each decision we make, each word we share, and each act we play out.

Use 2020 to reach for the stars in your life while helping others do the same. Who knows maybe we are living the dream that no one in history could even imagine.